


Non Ego Sanius Bacchabor Edonis

by JackOfNone



Category: Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Genre: Ancient Rome, Drunk Sex, Fluff, Gambling, Holiday, Literary Reference, M/M, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-30
Updated: 2009-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-04 00:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackOfNone/pseuds/JackOfNone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Twas the night before Saturnalia. Vergil is shy, Maecenas is charming, and Horace is very, very drunk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Non Ego Sanius Bacchabor Edonis

"No, Maecenas," Horace said, picking through the remains of what had been a roast pheasant at one point. "I am not, in fact, going to read anything. I have had entirely too much wine for Callimachus. And besides, you didn't address me by my proper title."

"My apologies," Maecenas said, bowing slightly and adopting an exaggerated expression of reverence. "O Quintus Horatius Flaccus, best and greatest Lord of Revels, your servant humbly requests that you grace us with your divine favors and deign to read an insignificant line or two."

"That," Horace said, "is more like it. But anyway, I stand by my statement. You should have asked me an hour ago. Get Vergilius to do it -- he's sober." Horace paused as his crown of ribbons and flowers slipped down over his eyes; he pushed it back up on his forehead and batted the ribbons away like a kitten.

"Mostly," Vergil said, smiling a little.

"Mostly, he says! On the eve of Saturnalia, I bet you're the most sober man in Rome."

"Well, why on earth do you think I made him arbiter bibendi, Horatius? We can always count on Vergilius to be sensible."

"Quintus often complains about that," Vergil said, looking over his cup at Horace. The other poet had taken advantage of the vacated couch to drape himself over the entire length of it with his chin propped up in one hand.

"I thought we played knucklebones for the title," he said, frowning.

"We did. But Vergilius, as you recall, was using Varius's dice."

"So?"

"Varius loads his dice on Saturnalia. Which is why I had everyone switch," Maecenas said, glancing at Vergil, who shifted uncomfortably.

"Remind me to talk to Varius next time I run up a gambling debt," Horace said with a grin. "Where is Varius, anyway?"

"He went home half an hour ago." Vergil answered. He had found what appeared to be the last uneaten piece of bread, and was swirling it absently in a dish of spiced honey.

"Right. I remember now. Getting a good night's sleep before all the proper partying begins tomorrow, I suppose. Unlike you and I, Maecenas, who are most accomplished revelers, and poor Vergilius, whom we manage to bear along between us."

"It is rather late," Vergil said, taking a bite of the bread. "Perhaps we should head home."

"Nonsense! I won't hear of it!" Maecenas said. "Pretty boys shouldn't be roaming the streets at night," he added, smiling archly.

"If I see any, sir, I shall be sure to tell them your sound adv-- Quintus!" Vergil yelped, as Horace darted across the table to dip a dried fig in the dish of honey, nearly upsetting Vergil's half-empty goblet. "Be c-careful!"

"Lord of Revels, your unworthy underling suggests that you stop harassing Vergilius," Maecenas said. Horace sighed.

"I am not harassing anyone. Bacchus makes me clumsy, is all." Horace's garland slipped down his forehead again; Vergil reached over and straightened it for him. "Anyway, to return to the subject of poetry, I categorically refuse to hear any more Alexandrians. Immortal gods! You'd think it was the only city on earth to have borne any poets."

"Surely even you can appreciate their wit," Maecenas said. Horace sniffed in mock indignation.

"Nonsense! It's like birdsong â€" nice to listen to, but they mean nothing by it."

"Hidebound boor."

"Foppish aesthete."

"Quintus! My lord!" Vergil cried. "Stop, please!"

"Vergilius, we've has this argument a thousand times. We don't mean anything by it," Maecenas said.

"I know, but -- it's just that -- I mean..." Vergil began.

"...that he doesn't like seeing friends fight, even in jest," Horace finished, as Vergil trailed off. Horace possessed a habit of finishing other people's sentences for them when he found that their tongues moved slower than his wit; Vergil, who seemed to dislike talking in any case, was the only person who was ever grateful for the affectation.

"Surely we can all agree on something," Maecenas said. He grinned. "What about Sappho?"

"Our tenth muse! Yes, I think we can all agree on that â€" and Peace, as ever, comes in the form of a woman. But, alas," Horace continued, making an unsteady and melodramatic gesture, "alas, my statement stands. I have had too much wine for Sappho either."

"I can't do Greek cadence," Vergil said quietly. "My pronunciation is poor."

"Nonsense," Horace sniffed. "It'd be better than mine right now, anyway..." Vergil blushed, and shook his head. Horace knew better than to press the matter.

"We could play another round of dice," Maecenas suggested. He picked up a discarded case and rattled it experimentally. "I promise mine aren't loaded."

"What are we going to wager?" Horace said, holding out his hand for the case of dice. Maecenas tossed it to him.

"A jar of my best honey," Maecenas said, after a moment's thought. "I have one or two left over."

"An epigram on any subject, in any meter," Vergil said, and picked a discarded tablet off the table for scorekeeping. It was covered with half-finished, slightly obscene scrawls from the course of the night; he quietly inverted his stylus and smoothed over the wax.

"A kiss and a penny song!" Horace said, trilling the line awkwardly into something resembling the beginning of a couplet. Vergil rolled his eyes.

"Your meter's off," Maecenas said with a grin. Horace adopted an indignant look.

"Well, you're drunk!"

"So are you!"

Horace considered this for a moment. "You raise an excellent counter-argument, o learned one." He popped the latch on the dice case and dumped them out in his hand. "I will do you the favor of throwing first." Horace picked up the dice, shook them, and tossed them onto the table with an unsteady flourish. Unfortunately, he misjudged the necessary force; the dice rattled across the table, and one of them skittered off the edge and fell on the marble with a resounding clatter. "Senio!" Horace cried. "It's a high one, too."

"Doesn't count if it rolls off the table," Vergil said, picking up Horace's erstwhile die. "Even for the Lord of Revels," he added, smiling, when he saw Horace open his mouth to object.

"Whatever you say, whatever you say," Horace said, re-casting the die. "It seems I've rolled a slightly higher senio, in that case. Fortuna favors me, and your conspiracy to lower my score has been for naught, Publius."

Vergil poured the dice back into the cup, shook it, and overturned it onto the table. "Senio as well," he said, and made a few scratches on the tablet.

Maecenas threw third. "Bah! Seventeen. Well, at least it'll be a close game!"

It remained a close game, of course, until Maecenas managed to throw Venus.

"Publius! Tally up my score!" Maecenas said, smirking. Horace glared at the dice, as though they might be intimidated into showing a different total. The dice, heedless of any holiday authority, refused to be stared down.

"I won't bother -- you've beaten us both," Vergil said, sighing. "Rather soundly, I might add." Horace frowned angrily and climbed onto Vergil's couch to peer over his shoulder at the tablet in his lap. After a moment of hazy mental addition, Horace sighed in defeat.

"Well. I cannot argue with that," he shrugged.

"Hah! Well, Fortuna favors me in my own house. I suppose I'll be keeping that honey."

"What about the epigram?" Vergil said, tapping his stylus on his lips thoughtfully.

"Yes, what about it?" Horace interjected. "If you give him a commission now, he might have ten lines done in time for Lupercalia."

Maecenas grinned at Vergil. "I'd like to see how our Parthenias writes a love poem." Vergil colored to the ears and began to stammer something. "Of course, if you'd rather not, you can always write a pastoral. Something humorous with satyrs, perhaps."

"No -- no, a love poem is fine," Vergil said quietly, still blushing. "It's just that --"

"--he hasn't every published a love poem before. Which is not, of course, to say that he hasn't written them," Horace said.

"Quintus, that really isn't -- I mean --" Vergil began, then seemed to think better of it. "I'm not really any good at them, my lord."

"Nonsense! Lack of practice, nothing more," Maecenas said. Vergil shook his head, but Maecenas held up his hand. "Honestly, it's a holiday. You, Publius, are prevented by the laws of men and the gods from conducting business, which includes bewailing your supposed lack of artistry. Now, Quintus," Maecenas continued, and Horace was startled into attention. "What about you?"

"Maecenas," Horace began, standing up and bowing. "Whereas Vergilius will not compose on the spot, I cannot. Not tonight anyway. I am in no condition."

"You know," Vergil said quietly, smiling slightly, "I added a double measure of water to your wine. You aren't as addled as you claim."

"And I, dearest Publius, darling of Calliope and ever the keeper of the fraction of my soul that contains my good sense...I responded to your subterfuge by drinking double the amount. A simple question of ratios, my friend." Vergil sighed heavily and shook his head. "What, did you think I wouldn't taste the difference?"

"Well, you can deliver some doggerel whenever your head has cleared," Maecenas said, and cocked an eyebrow. "What about the kiss?"

"Wouldn't do to be in debt," Horace said with a lopsided smile, and leapt across a startled Vergil to land a kiss on the lips of the equally startled Maecenas.

"....I was joking, Quintus," Maecenas hissed, as soon as he had caught his breath.

"Were you? It's difficult to tell." Horace kept his arms wrapped around Maecenas's shoulders.

"Quintus!" Maecenas hissed again. "In front of--"

Vergilius stifled the beginnings of a coughing fit and turned redder than the cushions on his couch.

"Since Vergilius, as I said, possesses full half of my soul, I find it extraordinarily awkward keeping secrets from him. I am sure you understand, Gaius. And anyway," Horace continued, turning his head to regard Vergil, who peering over his hand at the two of them, "I doubt he minds." Vergil blinked a moment, dumbstruck, and then shook his head. "Although...." Horace disengaged himself from Maecenas and turned to face Vergil with a curious smirk. "If I'm not mistaken -- and I consider myself something of an authority on these matters, our Vergilius looks somewhat jealous. Of which one of us, I wonder?"

Vergil made a noise as though he was attempting to start about five different words simultaneously, and ended up producing nothing but another coughing fit. Horace snatched a water jug from the table and handed it to Vergil, who clutched it gratefully and gulped it down.

"Nonsense, Quintus," Maecenas said, over Horace's shoulder. "He's simply perturbed at our lack of respect for seniority. After all, he was here first."

"Y-you're both...both fools," Vergil said when he had finally caught his breath. "Drunken louts, too," he continued, but showed the slightest hint of a fond smile.

"And you're awfully lucky it's Saturnalia and therefore I'll tolerate all this insolence from the two of you."

"Oh, I nearly always say what I'm thinking," Horace said airily. "Eventually, anyway. It is one of my great faults. Maecenas, of course, has the great gift of saying exactly what everyone wants to hear, and Vergilius -- perhaps the wisest of us all -- simply chooses to say nothing."

Horace stood and pulled Vergil to his feet. Vergil, not expecting the move, stumbled forward and found himself caught in Horace's arms, face to face. For a moment, Vergil gazed down at Horace, breathing in the scent of strong wine and far too much Anatolian perfume. "Quintus..." he finally began, and shook his head, "Quintus, I --"

"Yes, yes, I know," Horace said, reaching up to remove Vergil's garland gently. "Honestly, did you think I didn't? Half of my soul, remember?"

"And Maecenas....?"

"The other half. I have hardly a scrap left for myself. Which is why," Horace continued, "I suspected that our sensible Vergilius was becoming rather like a wolf who doesn't know whether to pursue the hart or the hare. I'm right, aren't I?" Horace prompted, when Vergil did not reply.

"That...that's the first and only time I will ever be aptly compared to a wolf," Vergil said, smiling a little.

Vergil allowed himself to be pulled onto the couch between the two of them. If Maecenas had heard their conversation, he gave no indication. "Well, now we have the proper seating order backwards," Maecenas said, wrapping his hand around Horace's. "Is there any other standard of proper conduct we need to turn on its head, or are we done for the night?"

"Oh, I think we could think of a few things. You're always saying we have a certain amount of talent," Horace slid his other arm around Vergil's waist; he shuddered and closed his eyes, then started as Horace whispered very close to his ear, "I won't get a corona muralis for this, will I?" Vergil, whose thoughts were elsewhere, took a moment to piece this statement together.

"N-n....no, not...not really," Vergil stammered.

"Oh? That's a story you'll have to tell me -- another time," Horace said. Vergil drew breath sharply as Horace bit gently at his throat, in the split second before Maecenas leaned in and kissed him forcefully.

"Spirit of the season," Maecenas said archly, when he drew back. "Madness, misrule, and impropriety for a week, and then back to being good citizens until next December."

Vergil smiled, and then seemed to realize where he was and glanced around in panic. "The --the ser-servants --"

"Night off to prepare for tomorrow," Maecenas grinned. Only the doorman with strict orders not to move from his post."

Vergil closed his eyes again, swimming in the clashing scents of three different perfumes, leaning into Horace's embrace as Maecenas pushed a lock of hair out of his eyes and kissed Vergil again.

"Io Saturnalia," he heard Horace whisper, before he found better uses for his lips.


End file.
